Foreword by Nicolas Sarkozy to the catalog of the exhibition "Picasso and the old masters"
 

Meeting the great artist with the old masters of painting - a major cultural event. Exhibition "Picasso and the old masters, organized by the Association of National Museums, the Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, the National Picasso Museum and National Gallery, London, for the first time can witness the creative roots of the most significant artist in the art of the twentieth century.

Not immediately Pablo Picasso was a brilliant artist, not just the history of art has enriched it with their powerful creativity. At first it was a hard-working student, in love with the works of masters, which he opened for himself, visiting museums Prado and the Louvre. Sculptors of the Hellenistic Greece and Ancient Rome, the French and Spanish painters of the classical school, the Impressionists - this is the young learned the art of Pablo Ruiz Picasso, before he became a brilliant artist.

Picasso was the heir of classical art, he strove for harmony and perfection of form, but only after Cubism broke decisively with tradition, he became a real maestro. Anyone who liked to present himself Minotaur, symbolizing the unbridled force of myth, he studied the art of Velazquez, El Greco, Goya, Poussin, Delacroix, Ingres, Corot, Manet, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Gauguin, Cezanne, Courbet, to deconstruct and then in new interpretation of their work. Getting Started with the masters - only the first step towards the creation, the beginning of a fruitful and continuous dialogue.

Picasso was a companion of his age. For him, tradition was in step with the revolution. In different periods of his work rhythmically displaced each other and constantly updated. Not only the style of Picasso's constantly changing, but he was creating (or recreating) pictures, working as the old masters - with the same gestures, using the same tools, paint and canvas, as well as brilliantly solving tasks. A descendant of ancient Greece and classical Europe was also a descendant of Africa. Culture and civilization are mixed in the works of Picasso throughout his life. His work - is both cross-breeding, modernism and eternity. He recreated the plastic world.

Sometimes brutal, always brilliant, does not fit into the usual framework of artistic tradition, Picasso put all his power and strength of each motif in each subject. The genius of the artist overcame the temporal and spatial boundaries.

Picasso was the epitome of a revolutionary century, and yet he was perfectly blended in a number of old masters, who have always been the object of his love and admiration.

In 1956, the director Henri-Georges Clouzot shot the documentary "The Mystery of Picasso". Today is an excellent exhibition at the Grand Palais helps us better understand this mystery.

NICOLAS SARKOZY

http://bekar.livejournal.com/2839521...le=mine#cutid1

Thanks, interesting photos.

I was at this show in November, but then did not buy the catalog, in April, it was purchased, and now I've put most ponravivishiesya me a pair. That pair, the entire exhibition was organized as follows: number of hanging someone from the great old masters and the same subject or close to the spirit of pastiche of Picasso.

95 - Cranach. Portrait of a girl of noble birth
Picasso. Portrait of a Girl, by Cranach the younger
96 - Cranach. Venus and Cupid
97 - Picasso. Venus and Cupid
118 - Picasso. Portrait of the Artist, by El Greco
119 - El Greco. Portrait of the Artist (Theotokopoulos)
120 - Picasso. Portrait of Delacroix
121 - Delacroix. Self
134 - El Greco. St. Martin and the beggar
135 - Picasso. Boy, leading a horse
140 - Cezanne. Stood naked
141 - Picasso. Stood naked
146 - Renoir. Seated Bather in a Landscape, Eurydice
147 - Picasso. Large Bather
158 - El Greco. Visitation (Visitation of the Virgin of St. Elizabeth)
159 - Picasso. Two sisters
162 - El Greco. St. Jerome
163 - Picasso. Old Jew
176 - Zurbaran. St. Francis of Assisi
177 - Picasso. Man with a guitar

180 - Murillo. Little beggar
181 - Picasso. Imbecile
186 - Velázquez. Portrait of a dwarf Sebastian de Mora
187 - Picasso. Seated man with a sword and a flower
198 - Rembrandt. Seated man
199 - Picasso. The man with the golden helmet
207 - Delacroix. Algerian women in his chambers
215 - Picasso. Algerian women
224 - Picasso. Infanta Maria Margarita
225 - Velázquez. Infanta Maria Margarita
232 - Mans. Breakfast on the grass
233 - Picasso. Breakfast on the grass, on Manet
250 - Poussin. Abduction of the Sabine Women
251 - Picasso. Abduction of the Sabine Women
261 - Zurbaran. Still life with jugs
262 - Picasso. Carafe and Three Bowls
273 - Zurbaran. Lamb of God
276 - Picasso. Still life with sheep's skull
278 - Picasso. Skull with pitcher
279 - Cezanne. Three skulls

And the last portion of beauty:

288 - Picasso. Mill Galette
289 - Renoir. Ball at the mill Galette
294 - Degas. Absinthe
295 - Picasso. Absinthe Drinker
296 - Degas. Gladilschitsy
298 - Picasso. Fernanda in a black mantilla
299 - Goya. Countess De Caprio, Marquise de la Solana
297 - Picasso. Gladilschitsa
304 - Ingres. Portrait of Madame Cenon
305 - Picasso. Olga
308 - Van Gogh. Arlezianka portrait of Madame Zhinu
309 - Picasso. Arlezianka portrait of Lee Miller
312 - Picasso. Girls on the banks of the Seine, on Courbet
313 - Courbet. Girls on the banks of the Seine
320 - Picasso. Reclining Nude and the man playing the guitar
321 - Titian. Venus with Organist and Cupid
322 - Picasso. Reclining Nude with Necklace
323 - Velaskas. Venus with a Mirror
330 - Ingres. Odalisque
331 - Picasso. Reclining Nude

I missed the beginning. Picasso specially "quail" in the new old "songs" or so picked up a well similar stories?

I understand that knowingly "quail" and did not hide it, retaining the name of a source of inspiration or hint at it. The similarity of some unconvincing IMHO pairs (eg, a nude by Renoir). But this is just going where the names are different. Actually pralleli very interesting. Particularly impressed with the case of options 176-177. I remember the portrait of Prince Florizel in plaid.

qwerty I wonder what effect this all makes a living. What is the painting "stronger"?

You see, at this exhibition are collected not only the best old masters, not just a commonly accepted geniuses and the best work of genius, masterpieces of the masterpieces of world art, as, say, a portrait of a dwarf, I think the best portrait of all time, so it is impossible even to imagine that there is some artist with a strong painting. But Picasso - the world's only artist whose work can be compared with these giants try to present in his place to someone else even remotely does not work. At the same time Picasso surprisingly diverse and independent, and at the same time recognizable in each canvas, so, recognizing that the presented masterpieces of the past will be "stronger" most of the works of Picasso, in general, strengthens the view that Picasso is not in vain is number 1 in the world.